Far Cry VengeanceReview

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Proof that graphics matter.

By Matt Casamassina

The Crytek Studios-developed first-person shooter Far Cry was released for the PC format in early 2004 and the game instantly blew players away with state of the art graphics and a wide open tropical battlefield to explore. Since that time, new iterations of the Far Cry franchise have shown up on major home consoles, from PlayStation 2 and Xbox to, more recently, Xbox 360. And now Ubisoft has readied a Wii incarnation of the series, Far Cry Vengeance, as a first wave title. The Wii build successfully capitalizes on Nintendo's innovative remote, enabling a comfortably high level of control speed and accuracy as gamers run and gun down opponents in the jungles and in the surrounding waters. But just as Far Cry initially set a new graphic high on PC, so does it set a new graphic low on Wii, with visuals so blurry, smeary, sluggish and ugly that you'll question whether the title could realistically run on Nintendo 64.

Far Cry Vengeance for Wii is a mishmash of Instincts and Evolution with new additions, such as a modified storyline, exclusive maps and weapons, and Wii controller functionality. The title follows ex-military guru Jack Carver, whose mysterious past has somehow familiarized him with a variety of dangerous weapons and allowed him to unexplainably use feral powers to become part man-massacring beast when the situation calls for it. The Far Cry franchise will probably not be remembered for its compelling storytelling, but previous games did use real-time graphics well to set a mood. However, the Wii version begins with a jarringly compressed and blurry cinematic that should be running in real-time, but isn't. The first time we laid eyes on it, we thought that our test television had malfunctioned and we checked the settings, but alas, it's a software shortcoming. Sadly, the in-engine visuals don't look much better, if at all, which is Vengeance's biggest disappointment.

Carver meets with a voluptuous arms dealer and travels with her to a tropical location when some mercenaries attack, and the action rarely relents from that point forward. Wii owners can take solace in the fact that Ubisoft has really utilized Nintendo's controller. The standard configuration is too slow for our liking, but the sensitivity settings can be increased so that you can turn and aim quickly; and you can press and hold the A button to lock the screen so that you can aim GoldenEye style. Within a matter of minutes, you will find yourself easily navigating the vegetation-filled environments while effortlessly disposing of enemies with one-hit headshots.

As we played through the title, we often wondered why the Far Cry team didn't communicate with the Red Steel one, because had Ubisoft's exclusive shooter had Far Cry's control accuracy and speed it would have been a much better game. That being true, not all is well with the Wii functionality. Oddly, you'll have to flip the nunchuk up to make your character jump and in our experience the process feels clumsy and forced. Worse is that you'll have to thrust the controller forward as it's done in Red Steel to zoom in on enemies with the sniper rifle or any other weapon. We didn't like the option in Red Steel and it's considerably less intuitive in Far Cry.

Even with these control gripes, moving about the environments and gunning down mercenaries feels quick and responsive. Vengeance is, like its predecessors, an action-filled first-person shooter so if you favor FPSs like Doom or even Halo to efforts like Rainbow Six then you will undoubtedly also enjoy this undertaking. The game world is enormous and it's filled with enemies to shoot, weapons to pick up, and vehicles to ride in. You've got everything from a machete (you simply shake the Wii remote forward to slice and dice at any time, even if you're already holding a gun), a 9mm, Bull44, shotgun, G18, AM9, MP5, Auto45, Carbine, assault rifle, BC-74, sniper rifle, grenades, and yes, even rocket launcher. The sheer variety is commendable and the ability to drive everything from an RMV to a patrol boat breaks up the monotony of running through foliage and shotgun-blasting foes.

But how much fun you ultimately have with the game will be directly related to how forgiving you are of its many technical and content related inadequacies. Easily the biggest offender is the visual presentation, which we only touched upon earlier in the review. The awful graphics unfortunately do not stop with the cut sequences. Upon booting Vengeance, one truth becomes immediately visible: this game was rushed. Wii is theoretically more powerful than Xbox, but it doesn't have the pixel shading benefits of Microsoft's first generation hardware. Despite the fact that it has released more than a year after Instincts, Vengeance doesn't even look half as good -- and we're not exaggerating.